: What I meant to write was that I had not tried cool blocks on cedar,
Hey, you know, one of those impulse purchases! I really went into Sears for an 8" grinder after my cheap Chinese model fried itself. What was I thinking, using it for an hour at a stretch!

Is cedar a fir? Still just busting on you. But you are correct about the
sappy build up. Last summer, I milled about 10k bdft of mixed white pine and
hemlock for a neighbor. Even though he let this stuff sit out for 5 years or
so the pine created a lot of build up on the blades and roller guides. The
hemlock which is a fir, I think, was no problem. My band mill has an
attachment which irrigates the blade with a water and dish soap mixture to
prevent pitch build up. This works well in the field but wouldn't be to
practicable in the shop. They say oven/grill cleaner is good at removing
pitch. The wholesale clubs sell it by the gallon.

PS: To my surprise the timber from these logs was fine once you got past the
sapwood. Only one pine log produced black sawdust as the blade ripped into a
carpenter ant city!